Charles Barkley is known for saying the cold, hard truth when it comes to analyzing the game of basketball. If he thinks you’re good, or even if he thinks you’re bad, he’s going to say something about it, and he’s not going to hold back. He did no different upon analyzing the current state of the Los Angeles Lakers and their relationship with LeBron James, professing that it’s not his team anymore.
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The Lakers and LeBron are like a match made in heaven. He’s the biggest star in the sport, and the team is the most popular brand in the sport. They just go together hand in hand, and it makes sense.
But if you know Barkley, you know that he hates talking about the Lakers right now. Mainly because he thinks that they aren’t good enough to be worthy of being talked about so much. He’ll regularly sandbag segments in recent seasons where his show, NBA on TNT, will talk about them.
Barkley did no different when talking about the Lakers in his most recent interview, pointing out that the team hasn’t been successful in quite a while.
“LeBron is going to have to move on at some point. I mean, it is what it is. You know, he’s been there, even though he’s been putting up good numbers; they haven’t been successful in probably 4 years,” Barkley pointed out on The BetMGM Network.
It’s not like the Hall of Famer said anything that was non-factsaual. The Lakers struggled mightily before this past season. Ever since winning the bubble championship in 2020, they’ve had two coaching changes and only made it out of the first round of the playoffs once.
That all changed this past year when Luka Doncic was traded to the team at the deadline. The Lakers never looked back after the acquisition, going on a winning record and taking their division crown for the first time since ‘20. Even though they were bounced in the first round yet again, they promptly locked up Luka, and good times should be ahead for the franchise.
That’s when Barkley dropped the hard-hitting truth for Lakers fans, professing that Luka is the new franchise centerpiece.
“It’s probably already Luka’s team now. You don’t sign, trade for Luka Doncic, give him all that money, and it’s not his team,” Barkley said.
Chuck is completely right. Luka seems to be LA’s new go-to guy for the time being. That doesn’t mean that LeBron isn’t a key piece of the team that they will need to succeed. But it does mean that he won’t be the face of a franchise for the first time in his career.
Is LeBron hampering the Lakers, though? He is on the books for $52 million as the team’s highest-paid player. But it’s really hard to say that The King would ever drag down a roster because of his contract. At the end of the day, he’s one of the GOATs, and he’s worth it.
However, one thing is for sure: LeBron is far past his prime, and the Lakers need to set realistic goals for the upcoming season. It would be great to have a storybook ending to his time in LA, going on a title run. But it’s hard to envision that happening.
Albeit a few new faces, the Lakers are bringing back a lot of their roster from last year. Even though they won the Pacific division, the Minnesota Timberwolves humbled them in the first round of the playoffs. So, it’s going to take a major turnaround to get over the first-round hump.
Barkley also mentioned that other teams in the West got better. Especially, the Houston Rockets and the Denver Nuggets. Plus, the OKC Thunder are still a menacing presence, and the Timberwolves are also still looming.
We’ll see if LeBron and Luka can make magic together and defy all expectations. But as of now, Barkley is right. The Lakers feel like a 45-win team that will be battling to avoid the play-in tournament. That doesn’t mean that The King isn’t worth the money, though, as he gives them the best shot at competing for a title. It just means that there might be other, more interesting teams to talk about.
